


Isn't It Messed Up (How I'm Just Dying To Be Him?)

by orphan_account



Series: Confessions [1]
Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: F/M, M/M, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-24
Updated: 2010-01-24
Packaged: 2017-10-11 16:25:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/114345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A woman always knows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Isn't It Messed Up (How I'm Just Dying To Be Him?)

**TITLE:** Isn't It Messed Up (How I'm Just Dying To Be Him?)  
**WORD COUNT: **1,000-ish  
**RATING: **G  
**SUMMARY: **A woman always knows.  


 

 

  


Elisa hates Pete Wentz.

 

She confesses this to Patrick once, during a late-night semi-drunken phone call while Patrick is off on tour somewhere-or-another, and it feels like he's been away forever. (It always feels like he's been away forever.)

 

"You—really?" Patrick sounds honestly surprised, like he can't actually imagine that someone he loves so much could seriously hate the most important person in his entire life. "Like..._hate?_ Really hate?"

 

And then she has to explain, and it's hard because she probably wouldn't have the right words for this even if she were sober—words to explain how it's always Pete-and-Patrick, sharing all the inside jokes, talking over each other and interrupting each other and telling all their stories in rambling, married-couple tag-team relays, laughing uproariously at things only they will ever understand. Words to explain smudged and dog-eared notebooks, ragged scraps of torn-out paper, hastily-scrawled napkin notes bled through with thick-edged sharpie lines, scattered throughout the apartment, all full of words and phrases so random and abstract that they look like nonsense to her, meaningless, but that Patrick can stare at for five or ten minutes and arrange into the story of Pete's life and loves and heartbreaks, because he _understands._ Words to explain a connection she can't touch, something deeper than affection or friendship or even _love, _because it's like they are literally a part of each other, like they have fitted all the empty spaces in each other with puzzle pieces of themselves, and there isn't any room now for anybody else to squeeze in.

 

She wouldn't have the right words for that sober, and she certainly doesn't have them now. But she tries.

 

There is a long silence, and then Patrick says quietly, "I don't know what I'm supposed to say to that," and Elisa thinks, _yeah, I don't really know what you're supposed to say, either, _but at least it's out there. At least it's been said.

 

Somewhere on Patrick's bus, a familiar voice starts shouting, and there is the sound of a door opening before she hears Pete say, "Dude, that bar in Kansas City, with that—thing," and Patrick says absently, "The Empire Room," and Pete says, "Right, thanks," and Elisa just...hangs up.

  
Because really, what else is there to do?

 

—

 

 

Ashlee is secretly a fanfic junkie, and Pete/Patrick is her OTP of choice.

 

She's never admitted her addiction to anyone—she goes to ridiculous lengths to hide it, actually. Clearing her cache of visited sites and all her temporary internet files every single time she logs off, _on her own laptop._ Hiding saved fics—password-protected, using a random collection of numbers and letters she memorized for this exact purpose, so no one could guess it—in files buried in folders with the most boring names she can come up with, so she can re-read her favorites whenever she needs to.

  
And it _is _a need.

 

She doesn't think she could ever explain it, not in a way anyone could really understand. It's maybe a little like cutting, almost, albeit in a less dramatic way. But it's that same blend of pain-and-relief, that same fascination with self-mutilation, even if it's emotional instead of physical. She is darkly amused by the irony of it—her husband is the poster-boy for the emo uprising, while even her self-harm instincts are wrapped up in dorky, fluffy, fangirly trappings. A pop-princess to the core.

 

But there's something about it, something she can't quite let go of, that keeps her coming back to the same websites time and again, trawling delicious for new fics all the time.   It's an obsession, and she loves it and hates it in equal measure.

 

__  
Click,  
  
and Pete is pushing Patrick up against a wall, forceful, out of control and rutting like an animal in some dirty venue dressing room after a show.

 

__  
Click,  
  
and Patrick is sweet-sixteen, fumbling and nervous and eager in the back of the van while their bandmates sleep a few short feet away.

 

__  
Click,  
  
and they're onstage, hot for each other and knowing it, and the tension is ratcheting higher and higher with every page, with every kiss Pete presses into Patrick's skin, with every too-long look and too-light touch.

 

And even the porn is so _emotional, _so full of need and familiarity and _love, _and this—these aren't just kinky gay fantasies, not really. These are fucking _epic romances, _even most of the ones that claim to be plotless. They sort of can't seem to help themselves, because—and this is what kills her—_they're based on reality._ Not "reality," like Pete and Patrick are actually together, or ever have been. But "reality," like, most of the fics she reads were born from _her husband's own actual words, _from Q&amp;As and blog posts and interviews and concert patter, and it's hard to argue with, "I want to marry this guy," and "Patrick is my other half."

 

Epic fucking romance.

 

So she reads. Because it hurts to be reminded, over and over and over again, that the man she loves is essentially Meant To Be with someone who isn't her. But at the same time, some not-so-hidden part of her can't deny the truth of it, sees it every day in a thousand little ways, and actually _likes _seeing all of these imaginary worlds where the two of them get a happily ever after.

 

Sometimes, she thinks about confessing to Pete, telling him exactly what she's always doing, holed up with her laptop. And maybe he'll laugh for an hour and a half, and then run off and call Patrick and tell him just how insane his wife is, and he and Patrick will snicker themselves sick over the absurdity of it all and then proceed to mock her for all of time. Maybe he'll throw her on the bed and spend the rest of the day proving beyond all shadow of doubt that she is the _only _one he wants, the only one he'll _ever _want.   Maybe he'll do every sappy, romantic thing she's ever dreamed of, just to show her how wrong she is.

 

And maybe he won't.

 

Sometimes, she doesn't even know which one she's hoping for.

 

Ashlee angles the screen of her laptop further out of Pete's line of sight, and guiltily pulls up her Livejournal account. Across the room, Pete is dialing his phone.

 

"Paaaaaatrick, where are you, dude, you know I need my daily dose. Call me back, man, if I have to go too much longer without hearing your voice I'm gonna have to hunt you down for an actual hug, and LA traffic's a bitch."

 

Ashlee pulls up her flist and scans the latest community posts.

 

__  
Summary: Pete's been waiting for eight long years, but tonight, he has something to confess.  


 

That looks promising.

 

__  
Click.  


~

 

End.


End file.
